


The People Too Did Rise

by atheartagentleman



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, French Revolution, Gen, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Paris Uprising 1832, Revolution, seriously so much angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-15
Updated: 2013-07-15
Packaged: 2017-12-20 05:38:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/883562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atheartagentleman/pseuds/atheartagentleman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘To the barricades! Long live France! Long live the people!’</p>
<p>And the people listen.</p>
<p>They rise and follow this clarion-voiced Michael into battle. The streets of Paris roar their approval, their very cobbles cresting to greet the feet of the revolution. Her great, beating heart pounds blood through twisted veins and sweeping arteries, until the stones and eyes and bayonets are wet with it, baying in anguish and triumph. They are angry, they are hungry, they will have vengeance. The tricolour soars atop the barricade, laughing and snapping in the teeth of the cannons.</p>
<p>-----</p>
<p>What if the Revolution succeeds? What then?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The People Too Did Rise

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to the wonderful suchbluesky, with whom I cooked up this idea in the first place and who looked over it for me. Many thanks too to human-ithink, who is (as always) a wonderful beta and provides endless encouragement.
> 
> I am so sorry for everything.
> 
> Happy Bastille Day everyone.

‘To the barricades! Long live France! Long live the people!’

And the people listen.

They rise and follow this clarion-voiced Michael into battle. The streets of Paris roar their approval, their very cobbles cresting to greet the feet of the revolution. Her great, beating heart pounds blood through twisted veins and sweeping arteries, until the stones and eyes and bayonets are wet with it, baying in anguish and triumph. They are angry, they are hungry, they will have vengeance. The tricolour soars atop the barricade, laughing and snapping in the teeth of the cannons.

The National Guard never stood a chance. Not outnumbered, nor outgunned, but outangered, outhearted. The first wave falls before the fury of the revolution. The second does not even try, but defects, blue-coated men scattering to join their brethren, scaling the sheer face of wood and coffin-nails to breathe the new air of the other side. These are my brothers, my sons, my kinsmen, my countrymen. I will not fight them. Those officers who try to uphold orders are shot with cold fire. Lamarque was a general, you know, they say. He was one of us in more ways than one, they say. You will not be allowed to stop us. Compassion takes two. Combeferre weeps for them, but weeps also for the fact that they could not see. It is such a new thing, this National Guard, the terrified response to a failed revolt, the militia of a city formed to oppress that self-same city. Combeferre weeps but never falters.

They are in the thick of the fighting, the Friends of the Downtrodden – who are downtrodden no more. Bahorel grins like a shark and there is blood in his teeth and on his red banner of a waistcoat. Gentle Joly has spread his four wings on the blast and breathed in the face of the foe, and his cane too is flecked with blood. The Guardsmen keep coming, and where their ranks gape like shouting mouths, the regulars crowd, armed and snarling. They are Legion, strangers who feel no bond to Paris and her citizens, men with hard eyes who were asked no questions and who ask none in return. They have seen other revolutions fail, and have been crushed, and now crush in their turn. But they cannot prevail against the anger of those who have been gagged and chained for too long, called to arms by fresh-faced youths and Ares-Apollo-Alexander, who has never been more glorious than he is now, streaked with blood and sweat, panting and furious and blazingly _alive_.

Grantaire watches.

He is of no more use to his friends now than he ever was. He lays low a man or two, having turned a makeshift flagpole into a fighting stick (and it is fitting that he makes vulgar once more that which had briefly been exalted), but he cannot be carried on the flood which bears his friends aloft and to victory. He is clay-bound, made from dust, not fire. Human among avenging angels. He watches, helpless, as Gavroche is trampled and Jehan shot, flowers of blood on his jacket to match those in his verses and his hair. He hides himself away, because he knows that the vanguard always sustains the heaviest losses, and he will not watch more of his friends die. He cannot bear it. The people of Paris have proved his predictions wrong, but he harbours few illusions regarding the fate of his beautiful, reckless – wreckless – friends. There is bile in his throat as it constricts with shame both at his own cowardice and in fear for them. Jehan already is gone. Jehan and Gavroche, whom everyone underestimated. The others will surely follow, for Les Amis have always done everything together. Grantaire drowns a sob with wine and builds his own barricade between himself and Paris, hiding in an empty back room. It feels like a child’s toy made of matchsticks – too new an invention for him to have been told not to play with them, but he would not have heeded the warning anyway. He has nothing to fear from fire. He is already all burnt up.

*******

It is a week before the barricades are dismantled, their twisted timbers used for scaffolds instead. Enjolras is the only one of Les Amis still standing. Grantaire supposes he should feel grateful for that much. Instead, he feels sick. There is a grand funeral (the knife twists in his gut as the circle closes and is complete) and the fallen are feted as martyrs and saints. All Grantaire can do is remember how Feuilly’s face lit up when he laughed, forgetting his woes for a few precious instants of mirth. He has seen enough martyrs etched in marble and painted from floor to ceiling to know Feuilly was not a martyr. Martyrs are wretched, and often old. Feuilly was young and brilliant. A man. Canonisation does him a disservice. Grantaire raises his brandy in a solitary toast and pretends not to feel the tears stinging his eyes.

You mock our friends, O Fearless One. They would not have wished for this.

*******

Enjolras smiles, beatified, at the people. The People. He loves them unconditionally, and has given them that which was most dear to him – not his life, but his friends. And now, now he will lead them with a kind hand until a Constitution is drafted, and then joyously announce the birth of the Republic and of government by the people, for the people. His silver voice promises these things, and the people listen, as they have always listened to him, and they trust him to lead them out of the darkness of the cave, to hold their hand as they adjust to the light.

He surrounds himself with new advisers, lieutenants and friends, and tries not to wonder why they never feel right (he knows. Of course he knows). They are strong and clever and he trusts them in government, but they are not his. They are not _them_. But _their_ struggle has not been in vain, and Enjolras privately dedicates his new Republic to the memory of his friends. He knows Combeferre would rebuke him for it, but allows himself this small selfishness.

Marius still lives, and Enjolras receives word of his wedding. His invitation is a day late, impersonal and feather-light, and he brushes it off with only a fleeting regret. The ceremony has passed already anyway. Grantaire lives too, though Enjolras does not know how he knows this. It is a certainty that runs deeper than bone. But he has no time to pursue it. There is so very much to do, and Grantaire never cared for their cause anyway. Instead, Enjolras busies himself with nurturing his embryonic Republic, feeding her and murmuring encouragement and chastising those who would stunt her before she ever had a chance to grow (Jehan would have had better words. But there is so much to do).

The days become weeks and still the Constitutional Congress returns with only empty hands or words full of empty promises. Enjolras paces and snarls. He has waited and planned for years, and he is sick of waiting. The people rose. The rest should be easy. Nothing they write is good enough, nothing will prevent new tyranny, or enshrine the liberties the people have been denied for so long, but which are theirs by birthright. It must be perfect. His friends died for this, and it must be worthy of their sacrifice.

This is the sixth draft he has torn to shreds under the dismayed gazes of the Congress.

It just... It isn’t... It’s never _enough_.

*******

Weeks are months, and all are a blur as Grantaire drinks like he has never drunk before. None of it washes away the taste of bile, and all the opium of Paris could not dispel the iron heaviness of blood. Besides, he and Jehan used to frequent the opium dens together, so Grantaire has not been back. He tries never to think of his friends. Has mostly succeeded. He gave himself a day to grieve them, but now, he chooses to think only of other things – any other thing – because he knows that the more he tries to remember their laughing faces, the more he will see only the blood that stained their temples and bubbled from their throats as they died. And R would rather not remember them at all than remember them dead.

There is one, of course, who is not dead, but thinking of him hurts most of all. (This has never stopped Grantaire before, though).

*******

Months – almost a year – and the words ‘interim’ and ‘temporary’ have lost all meaning. Enjolras still sits in the building he commandeered for his headquarters and tears at his golden mane, penning laws and speeches with an ardour indistinguishable from mania. None of it is right, none good enough, but he must do what he can. He will step down as soon as he is able, he knows this, just as soon as they have got it _right_ , have set everything in place for the Utopia the People deserve.

He dismissed the Constitutional Congress three weeks ago, driven to wordless frustration by their continuing failure to produce anything worth reading, let alone enshrining as the foundational principles of this great nation. (Not even Grantaire had been able to frustrate him that much, Before). Ever since, he has spent his days legislating and giving directions, trying to be as coherent as he can so that an interweaving framework of just laws and just administration will ensue, and the Constitution will be able to fit around and under it. It is difficult. He never did complete his studies. But he must do his best, and his closest advisers are competent men. At night, he drafts, redrafts and frets over the Constitution. It is a labour of love, but nobody ever claimed love was easy, or clean. Enjolras is an orator. Combeferre would have been best suited for this task. Combeferre, and Jehan and Bahorel. Enjolras swipes a claw-like hand over his haunted eyes, banishing the image of his friends. He is doing this for them, but their memory never allows him to work as needs to.

The people mutter in the streets, confused and a little hurt, but Enjolras’ voice is sweet and musical and urges them to be patient, that soon all their suffering will end and they will be exalted. And still they listen to him, faces upturned and smiles tremulous with hope. The angel promised a Revolution, and delivered – why should he break his promises now? Such beauty cannot lie.

*******

Two years whirl by, then three.

Enjolras wears his hair short, as convention and practicality demand. He has recently moved his official residence.

Grantaire has found new haunts, his face so hollowed it resembles nothing so much as a skull. Perhaps that is why the hand of Death has passed him by: she thinks him one of her own already.

The people of France groan under chains crafted to secure the freedom of their minds and the idyll of the Republic.

Nobody mentions the Constitution anymore.

Instead, there are faint murmurings of war.

*******

Grantaire is not yet so insensible to the world that he does not see (though he tries). He has always seen too much. They used to joke that he was the blind lover of light, but they were wrong. He saw more than they ever could. He wishes he didn’t.

He lurks in the shadows, wishes he could look away when the others look up, cannot bear to see his godling fallen so low even as he reaches the heights he once despised, but Grantaire cannot turn away. He never could. About that, at least, they were right. He has no tears to weep anymore, so it is brandy that gathers in the corners of his eyes to run down the chasms of his face and burn the cracked skin. He licks it from dry lips and tastes only ash.

This is far worse than anything he could have predicted in his drunken orations, when his friends humoured him and the candles glowed warm. He had told them humanity would never change, that they would never alter the mechanics of the universe. He had told them they would all die in the attempt. Only die. The people were weak and would betray his friends, but Enjolras? Enjolras was incorruptible and so he would die, and Grantaire would die with him, whether his heart stopped beating or not. Except...

_I believe in you_. This too is gone now.

(Maybe Enjolras did die. His life was freedom. One might call it suicide.)

*******

There is unrest on the streets, faint rustlings, mere whispers and meaningful glances. Enjolras comes to hear of them – he tries to know everything, and many are more than happy to keep him informed, to help him safeguard Patria. He responds with swiftness and justice, archangel once more, though he has foot-soldiers now, and his high windows afford him a better vantage-point to oversee the paradise he works night and day to protect from itself. If the People only _knew_... He wants to give them everything, but cannot until they are ready to receive it, so that their rough hands do not smother this infant in their eagerness. Once she is strong enough... Soon. (His certainty is unshakeable as ever, but when tested it sounds like a bell struck with too much force).

He will not make public examples of them; he abhors such barbarity, but the whispers still spread. There is fear too now. But have fear and virtue not always gone hand in hand? Once, a man bearing the very name of the city of Paris dealt its justice. This too is fitting.

*******

Grantaire hears too – of course he does, people always talk in bars, and he never could learn not to listen to fools in such places – and solemnly pours a bottle of wine onto the sawdust of the floor. His eyes are screwed up against the sobs that claw at his ribs, and he sees them again, prays this will be the last time, knows it will not. Couldn’t bear it if it were.

*******

Enjolras is the only one who still calls it a Republic, with the light of madness in his eyes. He still believes, believes with everything he has. His belief is everything he is. Had Grantaire been there, he would have told his Apollo that his conviction has taken root in poisoned ground, and that its silhouette is too stark against the sky, its thorns making silk ribbons of the ideas he used to pin to his doublet. He has not seen Grantaire since the Revolution, though – and it is only on its anniversary that he spares a thought for the man he used to call friend for all that he would grind his teeth in frustration at Grantaire’s faithlessness. He might be dead, and Enjolras the last one left. He does not take the time to examine his conviction that this is not so.

*******

The year is 1838. In a small apartment in Montparnasse, a group of workers and students meet for the first time, in half-darkness and undertones. Their eyes are wary, fear tempering their anger: now, more than ever, there are spies everywhere, and the administration harbours particular suspicion of the students (the rumours fly as to the reason for that, but it is immaterial, declares one of their number). Nobody betrays them at that first meeting. Nor the second. Nor any after that. So they plan, accumulate arms, proselytise in furious whispers to ghost-like crowds who would shout their pain if they only had voices left to raise and a sky into which to hurl oaths. All eyes blaze, but though the embers are carefully banked, no spark is set, for the light would draw the wolves. There is no time for dramatic speeches – their cause is common, it needs no explanation. Harangues have given way to dark intent whose hooded figure now walks the streets once more.

We will be their dupes no longer.

This time, there is no funeral fanfare, no ceremony; there is only the hostile sneer of a policeman who has never had reason to be afraid. It is enough. The kindling, bone-dry for so long, takes at once and the conflagration dwarfs the tenements of Paris. These are not a wave, sudden and overbearing, but a tide. They rise from the pavements like ghosts, grey-clad, grey-eyed, with steel grey in their hands. They are not wild, but inexorable; all falls before them. The sky is iron-clad and dulls the blood in which it is mirrored – there is blood, of course there is blood. There will always be blood.

They reach the palace (there is only one who denies that term with a sneer), and the door caves with a soft whoosh of resignation – or is it relief? They split up to search faster, hunt through the rooms in deadly silence, soft-winged hawks. The one who eventually finds him is dark, with flashing eyes and a square jaw and a nose that has been broken at least once.

Enjolras turns from the window to face him. He feels no fear about leaving his unguarded back to the casement. For a moment, he sees a different face, a different crooked nose, but that too is gone.

He is not offered a blindfold.

He would have refused it anyway.

As he stares down the barrel of this young, well-dressed and soot-smeared man, he is grateful. He is so tired, and he got so very lost on the way. He always needed guidance and an anchor, but he lost those years ago. Perhaps... perhaps these grey-faced creatures will do better.

Enjolras smiles even as the shots pierce him.

The carriage clock on his mantelpiece reads three thirty-one.

*******

Seven miles away, a drunken skeleton will stumble into a confrontation between guards and revolutionaries and will be caught in the cross-fire. He will fall, torn full of holes from all sides, as the bells of Paris chime the half-hour.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos if you pick up on any/all of my self-indulgent (and admittedly fairly cryptic) historical references. Feel free to send me a list of what you find, and we can turn it into an Easter hunt.
> 
> Reviews, kudos etc are like water and air to me, you have no idea. I am also always more than happy to talk to people and wail at them, so come say hi on tumblr, where I am at-heart-a-gentleman.
> 
> Fun fact: human-ithink and I renamed Bastille Day 'France Did A Thing Day', and even though it's 1am here and thus the 15th, I felt this was a fitting tribute, because I am twisted like that.


End file.
